Bet Awards 2012

Tonight, was the live showing of the 2012 BET Awards and it was definitely star studded. From Beyonce to Nicki Minaj and the waited come back performance by singer D Angelo. Appearances by Lauren London, Kevin Hart and many more. 

The most remembered part of tonight's show though was the Tribute to Whitney Houston. With words of remembrance from Whitney's close friend Mariah Carey, and multiple performances from Brandy, Monica and even Whitney's brother and Mother Cissy Houston. Brandy definitely made the Tribute with her up beat performance of " I Wanna Dance With Somebody". The entire audience was in tears and shared a moment remembering the late Whitney Houston. She will forever be missed. 

Great Performances from Kanye, Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj and many more great performances. The most shocking part to me though was Chris Brown's hint to retirement. The singer made a note to say that his next album "Fortune" would be his last. Fan's will definitely be a little disappointed but I'm sure he's going on to bigger and better things. The singer has been seen in multiple films, from Stomp the Yard, This Christmas,   Takers, and the most  recent Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man

Katy Perry Part of Me...

Only 6 more days until Katy Perry's Part of Me documentary comes to theaters in 3D. Katy Perry is definitely a talented and down to earth musician that deserves recognition, and I have a feeling that her concert documentary will be just the thing to do so.

San Diego's Z90.3 says that Part of Me is one of the best music documentaries since Madonna's Truth or Dare. It shows the human being in Katy Perry, her talent and also that she has complete control over her career. MTV Producers and Reps also say that Katy Perry's Part of Me was brilliant.

At the film premiere, Katy admitted to being nervous to the reaction of the film. Her plans for her upcoming album is going to be quite different than what her fans are used to. Katy has said that her next album is going to be a darker album than the previous one that will reflect on the most recent events of her life. Her album is expected to release sometime next summer. As a die hard Katy fan , I'm not sure what to expect from her next dark album but whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be nothing but hits.

Ted..

Ted came out today in theaters. It's a rated R movie about a guy name John who makes a wish as a young kid that his teddy bear would come to life. Now as a grown man, John has to deal with the live teddy bear that refused to leave his side ever since.



Critics are already calling this movie dull, and a critic from The Washington Post says that the character can't sustain interest beyond the initial outrageous guffaw.

Elizabeth Weitzman from the New York Daily News gives Ted a 3 out of 5 stars, claiming that it not every joke was a score but the hits were worth the miss.

I can't imagine what these people expect the movie about a talking teddy bear who is vulgar and crude was going to be like. I first saw the trailer for this movie a few months ago and at first sight i thought it was a kids movie until the bear actually started talking. I hope parent's don't think it's appropriate to bring their kids to this movie.

Mother Abuses 10 month old baby...

I was in complete shock when i heard about the mother who abused her 10 month old baby girl and was sending the videos and messages to her baby's father. 


Apparently, 20 year old Kellie Park from West Haven, Connecticut was arrested last week after the father of her 10 month old baby received the videos and 55 text messages which said "I'll beat her in the face" and "I love abusing this child". Police report that in one of the videos they heard Kellie Park yelling at the baby to eat food off the floor, while screaming " This is what your dad wants me to do" and throwing food at the baby while she was still in the high chair. Following that she can then be seen taking the baby out the chair, then putting the baby into a crib while she's shaking the crib until the baby falls out. 


In another video, a police reports that Kellie is seen kicking a gate onto the crying baby causing her to fall and then she screams "Don't you get it? Your father doesn't care so guess what, I'm not going to care". 


She was arrested and charged with third degree assault and cruelty to persons, risk of injury and threatening. The 10 month daughter is now in the custody of Kelli's mother along with her other 2 year old child. Her bail is 50,000 and she is due back in court July 11, 2012. 


It amazes me how cruel some people can be. I can only imagine what her two year old had to go through if this is what she's doing to her 10 month baby. She definitely needs mental help and shouldn't be able to see her children for a long time, if ever. Some people just should not be allowed to be parents. My prayers go out to the baby and the family as well because I'm sure they are getting some of the slack due to Kelli's behavior. 

Beiber Fever

Justin Beiber's fourth album goes #1. His fourth album sold over $374,000 for its release last week, giving him the best sales of his career. His album Believe also debuted number 1 in 29 countries. He's definitely on a winning streak. His album topped Madonna's and is the best selling first week release since Drake's Take Care album came out in December 2011.

So now, Beiber has sold more than 15 million albums since his first record in 2009. I'm not a Justin Beiber fan, but I will say that he has brainwashed the mines of many children and young adults. His song "Girlfriend" off of his most recent album even caught my attention. I almost didn't realize that was him. Justin's career is just beginning and I'm sure we're going to be seeing much more of the Canadian singer.

Avengers Conquer Movies Milestone

The Marvel movie Avengers has reached its 54th day in the theaters and already has reached over 600 million dollars. It joins James Cameron's Avatar and Titanic which are the only other movies that reached 600 million dollars that fast. It's the second fastest to reach that milestone after 54 days, behind Avatar which reached $600 million after 47 days of being in the theaters. 

It doesn't slip my mind that I'm sure most people went to go see Avengers when it was on a Tuesday, seeing that it was $5 Tuesdays, not something that was around during the time for Titanic that reached $600 million after being in the theaters for 252 days. Another thing that doesn't surprise me is that these ratings are only in dollars not by number of tickets sold. 

Avengers was hands down one of the greatest movies of 2012, with the Marvel mash-up of characters. Amazing line up and can't wait until they start showing the trailers for the upcoming Avengers sequel, because we all know there has to be one with that ending. 

VH1's Hollywood Exes

VH1 premiered the sneak peek to their upcoming new reality docu-series, Hollywood Exes. The one hour episode gave viewers a chance to be introduced to the five ex wives of Hollywood's greatest and most known men. Among the five ex wives was comedian Eddie Murphy's ex wife Nicole Murphy.

The show will premiere on Weds, June 27th,2012 at 9:00pm on VH1. It They were married to Hollywood's A-list stars from Will Smith, Jose Conseco, Eddie Murphy, Prince and R Kelly (Robert Kelly) and now they are making a name for themselves as they adjust to life without their former husbands. Here's the cast of the new reality docu-series on VH1's Hollywood Exes. 

Will Smith's ex wife, Sheree Fletcher, mother of his oldest son Trey. They met on the set of A Different World dated for a while and finally got married. After a few years they realized it wasn't going to work. Now her son being 18 years, she has stopped recieving child support and has to adjust to life without the support of her ex husband. That shouldn't be too hard seeing as she's married to former football player Terrell Fletcher. 

Jose Canseco's ex wife, Jessica Canseco was married to him for over 15 years and have a beautiful  fifteen  year old daughter with him. Without the success and support from her ex husband, Jessica is forced to rely on her own talents and abilities to support their daughter. She doesn't seem like she's doing too bad either to make a name for her self. She currently owns a cosmetic and medical tattooing business in Beverly Hills and is living life single and ready to mingle.

Nicole Murphy, ex wife to comedian Eddie Murphy who she had five children with. She's maintaining her image and seems to be doing pretty well without him. She's currently engaged to retired football player Michael Strahan and is focusing on restarting her modeling career. She seems to be the shows leading lady although we have only seen the sneak peek.

Andrea Kelly, ex wife of R&B Singer R.Kelly with whom she has children by. She's coming to terms with her title as being the background wife. Until now, no one was even aware that R.Kelly was married and they were married for over fifteen years. She is recently divorced and ready to move on and start her life without her ex husband. 

Mayte Garcia ex wife of Prince. She was originally a dance for Prince . They were married for four years and unfortunately had a baby that never made it. She later was engaged to rocker Tommy Lee but split due to differences in lifestyle. She wanted children and he didn't want anymore. Without and Children from her previous marriage, she is determined to have a child while her clock is still ticking. 

These women are all very interesting in their own way. I know I'm looking forward to seeing what this show brings. For one, this was one of the first VH1 premieres that did not include the women fighting in the first episode or even in the trailer. Just a few A-List celebrities ex wives, working at maintaining a happy home and life without their ex's the positive way. 

Time Warner stops DVR ad-Skipping

People are becoming concerned with Time Warners decision in blocking the fast forward button so recorded commercials can't be skipped. Despite the commercials that show people being able to fast forward through commercials in the Hopper DVR, Time Warner still is siding with the broadcast networks that have been going law suit happy over the Hopper. Time Warner Cable has gotten a patent for a method of disabling trick-mode features on DVR's.The tech is letting Time Warner block fast forwarding so recorded programming (commercials) can't be skipped over. 

Many of the TV providers have already disabling the fast forward option during commercials and are just allowing customers to record their favorite shows and watch it on their own time rather than scheduled time. The problem here is that most people who record their shows don't want to sit through commercials about products they are not interested in purchasing. Their sole purpose in watching the recorded television program is to watch it for pure entertainment. 

My question is with the new blocking of the fast forward button, is that going to stop people from using Dish Networks and other TV providers that offer the DVR and recording of shows?   

Miley and Liam Hemsworth

After hearing so much news on Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth's engagement, I just had to go on and address it. Miley and Liam dated back in 2009 after they starred in "The Last Song" together. The relationship didn't last very long, they broke up a year later. After they split, they managed to get back together within less than a year, and now they are finally engaged. Insider's close to the couple say that both families are happy about the engagement and Miley is ecstatic. They're planning for a summer wedding.



A lot of people are giving their opinions on the two getting engaged early, saying that they are too young to get married. People assume that since they are too young, their marriage will not last long. Well the age of  the two people getting married does not matter. People can get married at any age and either last a long time or end early. I mean look at Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphrey's. They are both at an age where it is expected to get married and they did not even last past a few month's  before they were trying to get divorced. Katy Perry and Russell Brand are also at a decent age and people thought they were madly in love; their marriage lasted a year. Country Singer Dolly Parton and Carl Thomas Dean married when the singer was just 20 years old in 1966, and they are still  together. Actor Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan met on Step Up and have been together ever since.

Miley and Liam seem to be happy together, and if they work hard at their marriage, I'm sure they will last as long as they want it too. It's amazing what the media can do; turn what's supposed to be a good moment for someone into something sour.

T-Mobile's Twitter Race

Despite my talk about social networking being bad for communication, it is definitely not bad for business.
T-Mobile launched a twitter race recently as a re-branding effort for the cellular carrier. They've recently switched the TV ad's spokes women from wearing the sundress to a pink and black motorcycle suit while she speeds on the high way on a motorbike. The whole point of the commercial was to promote T-Mobile and their 4G speed.

The twitter race definitely had a high impact of followers. Over 24,000 tweets were sent over a 15 day period containing the companies hash tag, #4GTweets. That's ridiculous!

The race lasted from May 1, 2012 to May 15,2012, and during that period there were seven heats for contestants to win in. For twitter users to participate they had to go through a micro-site to sign up in order to be in the race. Therefore regular twitter users who just tweeted the hash tag weren't really considered to be in the race. Basically rules were simply, during the heats Big Fuel monitored each contestants number of re tweets and whoever had the highest number of retweets received a free HTC One S Phone. Twitter users were limited to one tweet during a heat that lasted three hours to reassure that there were no cheaters in the mist. After the heats, the seven winners competed against each other for a grand prize of $2,000.

I guess with all that competing T-Mobile got something out of it because they racked up 91 million impressions. The brand name got 32,000 mentions and close to 400,000 people visited the micro-site with about 3,400 people registering for to compete in the race itself. Over the 15 days T-Mobile gained about 3,000 new followers as well.

It's pretty interesting what a little networking can do for sales I guess. Maybe sprint should look into something like that. I'd love a chance to win a free phone.

Apple Ipad vs Asus Eee Pad Transformer

We all know that the Apple company has dominated in all things technology, from the iPod, Iphone and now the tablet Ipad. When companies tried to mimick apple's ipod and made an attempt to come up with different mp3 players, they fell short. Many companys tried to create a phone much better then the Iphone but once again, I phones still seem to be on top.The sprint carriers had a phone called the evo that was supposedly capable of doing all that the iphone could yet it was in no way close to the iphones sales rate. Now Asus manufacturers have mimicked a tablet thats supposedly as good as Apple's iPad, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. Now personally I have used both the Transformer and the iPad, and to my surprise I am impressed. The features of the transformer alone are a bit exciting. The Transformer is made with a special gorilla glass that exceeds much stronger than the Ipad's screen and it is much lighter in weight as well.

When it comes to apps and other fun features, Apple has definitely defeated the competition. However, even in terms of speed the Asus Eee Pad Transformer is out performing the Apple iPad. Another cool thing about the Transformer is that it can go both into fullscreen and widescreen without making pictures look deformed or messing with the pixels. The Transformer is a Honeycomb Tablet designed for landscape mode, and the iPad is a portrait mode. The screen on the Transformer is sharp and has slightly better specs than the iPad 2



In terms of space, the Transformer Prime doubles the amount of Ram that's included in the iPad 2. The Prime has 1 GB of ram while the iPad 2 only has 512 MB. Also, While the iPad 2 can store from 16 GB to 64 GB the Transformer Prime can store 32 GB to 64 and also had a SD card Slot to store more data. The iPad 2 does not have an SD card slot, so the storage space that is provided is all that is there.

Another interesting feature is that the Transformer Prime has a camera with an 8 Megapixels while the iPad 2 only has about .92 megapixels available. Good thing is they both have a front-facing camera.

The Transformer has much longer battery life according to users and it also is much more affordable.

Suggestions for all the Apple lovers, don't knock the  Transformer too soon.

Social Networking Bad for Communication.

I came across an article that excited me for the simple fact that it had some interesting ideas about social networks being bad for communication. I personally hate social networks and I think that it is weakening our communication skills. 
A study showed that one in seven college students say that social networking sites cause isolation. The more time we spend on social networks the less time we are spending in face to face communication. People are having trouble speaking face to face and would rather text or talk over the computer to say what they have to say. 
The study also showed that students use social networks to express feelings of depression and loneliness with nearly 70 percent of students reporting that they have read posts from friends that seemed like a cry for emotional help. 
Humans need something to live for, and in life relationships are important. Eye contact, touch and verbal contact are necessary parts of human relationships and are necessary for humans to thrive. These things can't be replaced by social networks and virtual relationships. 
It's amazing how something so convenient and popular could possibly be weakening the human communication process yet now one see's the harm in this. I can say from experience that I have seen the negative effects from social networks and I try my best not to get to involved or caught up in them as well. 


Food for thought; "If belonging works like a hunger, than Facebook could be like junk food. It's easy, it's quick, but its not as good as actual face-to-face communication, deep, rich connections" - Professor Wendi Gardner

"Let's Have a BBQ Today" BURGER KING® Commercial

Burger King has revamped their menu a bit to dedicate it to the summer and summer barbecue's, "Today is BBQ Day" they say. Their newest commercial contains people hanging out at the office where a lady is speaking on her phone and a few co-workers come over with a sign up saying "Lets have a BBQ Today". A dad goes over to his children who were sitting in the car, I assume heading out some where and says the same thing. A few friends seemed to be hanging out at a bonfire while a girl goes and says "You guy's lets have a BBQ today". Then it talks about the new addition to the menu, and the people enjoying not a typical barbecue on a grill but the new items from the Burger King menu.


Burger King's new menu includes a number of beef, pork and chicken sandwiches topped off with delicious sauces including their Carolina Burger, the new Texas Barbecue sandwich and the new sweet potato fries. In addition to their desserts menu, they are adding the new Bacon Sundae and a few frozen drinks like the new frozen lemonade.





I assume with the new commercial appealing to families with children and having fun in the sun Burger King is trying to regain a few customers and add on some potential customers to get it's popularity back. I'm not really sure if I'm going to change my mind about wanting to eat at Burger King because a few additional menu items but I'd love to see if this change makes a big difference.

Weird OCD Habits

I'm sure everyone's familiar with the weird habits of people who have Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD). Some common habits like color coordinating things, or over washing something multiple times because of their obsessive need to clean. 


Recently I found out though that some really common OCD habits lately have been linked to some really unhealthy substances and actions. A lot more people are having habits like eating  chalk, wall paint or powder during outbreaks to help relax them. Some people tend to cause physical pain to themselves as out breaks. 


One really common habit lately have been an obsession with picking things, from picking their ears, belly buttons and even scabs. A lot of people have been writing on forums about their obsession with picking scabs until they bleed and are wondering if it can cause fatal damage to their bodies. Fortunately for those people there hasn't really been anything fatal linked to picking scabs or other body parts, the most that will happen is a really bad infection. 


The obsession with eating powder however has been linked to cancer. Baby powder has talcum that can cause cancer, tumors and can mess up the human filter system. A lot of these bad habits do have cures so that's the good thing. There are always other things people can do to distract them from picking body parts or eating/inhaling these dangerous substances. 

Fathers Day

I decided to write a whole post on Father's Day given that today is supposed to be a day to appreciate fathers. I personally don't have a father so it was never a real important day in my household, however I am aware that a lot of other people do celebrate it. That being said, i wanted to just talk a little about how and why Father's Day even started. Apparently, according to History.com, Father's Day wasn't a huge hit as mothers day because fathers don't have the same sentimental appeal as do mothers. On July 5, 1908, a church in West Virginia decided to sponsor its first event honoring fathers. It wasn't a big hit, but the following year a Spokane women tried to establish an official day equivalent to Mothers Day for male parent's. She went to local churches, YMCA's, Government Officials and shopkeepers to reel up some support, and was very successful.  Washington state, celebrated the first National Father's Day on July 19, 1909. 


That's a little history of the origin of Father's Day. There are a good number of mothers who are doing both the job of the mom and dad who deserve some acknowledgment as well; However I think that just means that they should get special recognition on Mother's Day and not try to pull away from the day that was chosen for those fathers who actually are doing their job. 

Parents Influence on Childrens Relationships

I've had multiple conversations recently with people about the affect parents have on their children's relationships.This goes beyond boyfriend and girlfriend relationships.

Parent's first off have a major influence on children at young. If the child see's their parent's constantly arguing  and full of drama, that may play a negative part on the child later on when they get into relationships. The child may associate relationships with drama and arguments. This can later on build a fear of relationships later on and cause the teen or child not to want to be in a relationship later on.

Same way a parent can influence their child negatively in terms of relationships, they can also portray relationships in a positive way. The child/ teen can grow up in a house hold where the parent's are peaceful, respectful of one another and very loving; that can cause the child to associate relationships as something good.

I bring this up because recently I had a few young adults tell me their view on relationships and negative or positive, their parent's definitely had a huge influence on their view. One guy decide to stay away from relationships because he felt like at this point we're too young and its not going to last. He got this idea after seeing his parent's relationship fail with each other and then their most recent spouses. It amazes me how this person could simply look at his parent's relationship with his step parents and really take it out of proportion. Just because two people didn't work out and they were together at a young age does not mean that it had to do with their age; It could be a number of things. Along with that, just because they didn't work out doesn't mean that the next person who wants to be in a relationship at an early age won't find success.

Touch Screen Coke Machines

Coke has come up with a new touch screen coke machine that supplies over 104 different flavors of our favorite and ordinary beverages. I've had the please of using the machine and I think its quite amazing. I tasted the minute maid strawberry lemonade and the peach sprite which are both my favorites. While there are so many offers, still more than half of them are low and no calorie flavors.
This machine is a little bit of an upgrade from our normal soda machines. The Freestyle machine has a touch screen that instructs the machine to mix flavors almost immediately rather than having a ratio of syrup mix with carbonated water then drawn out through the little spigot. The inside of the machine only has one nozzle, and it works by releasing the flavors into a stream of carbonated water, ensuring that not one flavor taste like the flavor poured before. According to Slashfood.com, the Freestyle machine has been in development for over five years and coke has been ramping up distribution for the past six months testing 63 machines in over 53 outlets. For restaurants, it may be a little hassle because the Freestyle machine cost a mere 30% more than the average/ traditional soda machine however with the amount of different flavors I don't think the restaurants will have a problem making profit. The buzz from this machine will last quite awhile and i'm sure they will have a huge success off of these machines. I remember my first time using the machine, I was in my local mall in Burger King and tried it. I wasn't aware of the number of flavors so i stuck with my normal minute maid lemonade. Then all of a sudden the machine displayed multiple flavors of the minute maid lemonade. I was in shock! I normally don't buy drinks from restaurants because typically the meals are all I plan on spending on, but with these machines and free refills, I'm sure restaurants will be having a lot more customers than usual.

Prometheus

Prometheus was by far way more confusing then i expected. From the beginning of the movie it gave history of what was supposed to be our creators and how one of the creators got destroyed. Then it jumps to the year 2091 where two scientist discover something about where the possible creators are located. Next thing you know we're on the Prometheus in 2093 where the crew supposedly slept for two years in search of this destination. Finally they get note of where the destination is and prepare to go out and look for an answer to why humans we're created. The movie had a good amount of romance, comedy and of course its suspense and science fiction in it. I think over all it was by far a great prequel to the sci-fi movie "Alien". It basically showed us how the Alien was created or where it originated from. There were a few questions that made the movie a little less credible, for example, how we're they only on the ship sleep for two years and they reached their destination, which was far out in the Galaxy, when in reality it takes over two years to even reach Mars. I assume that since the movie takes place in the year 2093 that their science and technology are way more advanced and could probably shorten the amount of time that it takes to get to different planets but that would be just an assumption. Also, we still never understood why, if those creatures we're the creators of humans, why they created humans as well as why they were trying to destroy them. Guess these answers will never be discovered, unless there is a sequel to Prometheus, which would be very interesting to see how that turns out since the entire crew on the Prometheus was destroyed.

Historical information portrayed on Disney

I had the privilege to see a few historical monuments in Washington DC, this past weekend and it opened my eyes to a few things. I was never someone who actually liked learning about history so I wasn't surprised that I had no understanding of what these monuments stood for or why they were there, however I was surprised by the number of people that were there to acknowledge these monuments and pay respects, and a lot of them were young. 
In my middle school and high school we never really went over historical artifacts, monuments or anything like that. Instead of discussing that we focused on theories and what happened in history by watching movies that did not quite depict the actual event very well. I learned about the holocaust through movies, I learned about Pearl Harbor and the World Wars through movies, Civil Rights Movement through movies  and I even learned about the events that happened on Ellis Island through movies but I don't have any real knowledge of these events. Now that I think of it, a lot of what I learned from history classes in high school and middle school were irrelevant. We discussed things from Disney Movies that delivered false information about certain events, for example Pocahontas. We all know by now that there really was a Native American named Pocahontas however, the real Pocahontas never married a guy named John Smith who had blue eyes and blonde hair and was tall and fit. In all actuality she married a guy name John Rolfe, who was short and had red hair. I could go on for days about the incorrect information Disney Movies portrays to the younger generation but I'd rather not. 

Clara Barton Rest Stop

I spent an entire morning traveling from CT to DC, and the one most unforgettable moment was the stop at the Clara Barton Rest Stop. I've been to multiple rest stops in my time, but this one by far in my opinion was not on the top of my list. Here's a few things that went wrong...


1. There was no Dunkin Donuts! 
 There's a Dunkin Donuts every where besides this rest stop, which was unbelievable to me. 


2. The prices on everything was extremely high.
Now, I know its going to be expensive because its a rest stop and not a normal store or even a grocery store however, $5.00 for a small Ham and Cheese lunch-able is a real rip-off. 


3. Horrible Service
The employees at the different food spots, for example, Burger King, there was only one person who was working behind the counter that knew how to work the register, therefore, everyone had to wait for that one person to ring up a customer before they were helped. I don't understand why they would hire someone to work at a fast food restaurant like Burger King and not teach them how to use the register. 


4. Bad Food Quality
The food quality was horrible. I ordered a Croissan'wich with bacon and cheese, unfortunately they forgot to put bacon on my sandwich. Along with that, the bread seemed just rewarmed and it looked very unappetizing. Lastly, I ordered medium hash browns which seemed like they were just warmed up as well. What happened to these fast food restaurants actually preparing the food for you. 

Tuition Price Rises

College by far has become overrated in terms of tuition and fees. I mean, the amount of money we spend a year is by far more than it should be at this point and I'm starting to wonder where all that money is going to. With schools letting go of adjunct teachers and professors who aren't on a tenure, I hope the remaining professors aren't getting paid more. Along with that, the amount of classes are being reduced and students are being required to take classes later on in the year for lack of space or because the class that they needed wasn't being offered at the time. So exactly why are we paying extra money on tuition. We're being taught the same thing as a Community College and a good number of professors who work in the Universities go and work in Community Colleges as well so it's not like we're at an advantage. 


I read an article today about how Umass Trustees voted to raise tuition by 5% for in-state undergrads in the 2012-2013 Semester. They say it was necessary to protect the quality of education at the five campus university after a decade of state budget cuts. According to Umass president Robert Caret, the increase would generate $25 million for academic programs. They also noted that the University faced $63 Million in added costs next year for pay raises and a $2.4 Billion construction and modernization program that began awhile ago. I would love to see what exactly becomes affected. Will the amount of academic programs really increase or will the debt the schools owe decrease. Where exactly is the increase in tuition being used? 


All information came from: http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x318745580/UMass-trustees-vote-to-increase-tuition-fees

Uh Oh Oreo!!

There's been a little commotion about the Oreo Fudge Creme Commercial and it's chosen language. 

In the commercial the mom bites into her Oreo Fudge Creme and say's "Shut the front door", which in most people's cases is a substitute way to say something much more inappropriate for kids.
Seeing that the target audience for this commercial and product are kids, Mom's are becoming a little bit offended, specifically a group called One Million Moms who have contacted Nabisco and Kraft foods for promoting their product in such a way. 

I wasn't offended in anyway until my 3 year old niece started using that term and thinking it was okay to use. 
Of course it doesn't help that Disney shows which are targeted to younger children as well are starting to use these substitute words in their show dialogues as well, making it more familiar for children who are easily influenced. After watching the Oreo commercial while my niece was present and seeing her laugh at that phrase, caused me to start wondering, are we overlooking the catch phrases or words being used in commercials. "Shut the front door" is not commonly used anymore however the meaning still remains.

Zombies!!!

Today there was much conversation on the "Zombie Apocalypse". It's amazing what a little media and word of mouth can create. Clearly this is a call for attention, besides, everyone who knows about Zombie's knows that by now they would've been spreading and creating more Zombie's a faster pace. I wonder whats next..Real Life Vampires